Dianne and the Pumpkin Vine

One of hubby’s friends from work gave us a pumpkin from his garden a few months back. It was so yummy I kept the seeds and planted them at the front of the RUC.
Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of Jack and the Beanstalk – we now have Dianne and the Pumpkin Vine.

This baby has decided it just wants to cuddle the front of the RUC. It’s trying to make it’s way to the first floor!

There are biggish pumpkins

And littlish pumpkins

and flowers…

…some with native bees on them
(can you see that cute little native bee? They don’t sting and they make the BEST honey)

And to add colour to the garden, the hibiscus are blooming in orange, and…

…red

It’s almost winter here and I’m loving the cooler weather.

I’ve only got one question – how do I know when a pumpkin is ripe enough to pick?

Luckily I live in an area where everything grows to immense proportions, Sheila (but unfortunately the weeds do as well) so I don’t have to put a lot of effort into gardening. The hibiscus is glorious but hubby wants to pull them out to put in a new driveway – over my dead body 😀

I bought two orange hibiscus, Jill and only one of them is doing well (although the one that’s not doing so well was mowed over when it was tiny by hubby’s uncle) 😉 I absolutely love winter here – the coolest it gets is about 19C (or 66F) and it’s such a relief from the suffocating heat xxxx

I have pumpkin envy… we had a volunterr pumpkin vine sneak up with the potatoes -makes sense from a baked dinner perspective- but it was all leafy show, no-go with flowers or punkins so it’s gone to compost heaven. I think the best way to tell if they are ripe depends on the type, size, colour change, noise when tapped, if the neighbours are checking them out…

Haaaa – yep they are at the front of the house so the neighbours may be taking notice 😉 You’re the only other person I know who calls random vegi growth ‘volunteers’. The best volunteers I ever had were rockmelon (but I think you already know that from a short story I wrote about it.) I haven’t seen any posts from you for a while – I’m sure I followed your new blog – I need to go and check again 😉

I think what you Aussies call pumpkin we in North America call squash. A pumpkin is a type of squash, but specifically refers to the type that turns orange and is most commonly associated with Halloween. If that’s what you’re actually growing, harvest when they turn orange. Otherwise, pick your squash when they seem like they’re not getting any bigger and have a kind of hollow sound when you tap them.

Thanks Janna. I didn’t realise the difference – sometimes our interpretation of words can get a bit confusing. We have ‘squash’ here but it’s a smaller type of pumpkin so I guess we’re on the same track 😉 I’ll be outside knocking on my pumpkin/squash this week! 😉

I’m not a gardener so I can’t help you with your pumpkins. 😉 Your flowers are beautiful! I would love to live where things grow like they do with yours. 🙂 Except I don’t do well with heat and humidity. That’s why I left Texas. Well, one of the reasons. xxx

You’re like me Jackie – I love the warm weather, but not the stinking heat where humidity is 100%. Having said that, the cold plays havoc with my MS so I’m kind of stuck having to live in the tropics 🙂

Those little bees are gorgeous and their honey is very sought after. I’ve tasted it when we found a nest inside a door at a friends house. We got a bee keeper to move the hive to a safer place and the honey was awesome. There are a lot of them around the farm which is a really good sign of a healthy environment 🙂

I’ve been told they’re not real pumpkins by my American friends, Char. We’ve always called them pumpkins in Australia but I believe they’re actually known in the US as ‘squash’. But they’re still yummy!:D

Wow – I hope you’ll be able to swing on that vine like Tarzan soon! 🙂 If you don’t, then maybe the creatures will. I love seeing such beautiful flowers this time of year – we’re still looking forward to lots of blooming here. Happy Fall!

Am I jealous of your pumpkin vine? Ah, yes, I am green (and purple and orange) with envy. That pumpkin vine loves its location and obviously loves you. What do you do with the pumpkin once it’s ripe and ‘thunks’? Do you roast the pumpkin seed? Enjoy your fall there. We are jumping up and down because it’s – finally – spring. No hibiscus though in New England. Yours are glorious.

That’s wonderful. We are such terrible gardeners, that I’m a little jealous. Though, in truth, our soil isn’t the greatest and we don’t know how to take care of plants well besides, but hey, when we get something that works with little intervention from us, it’s quite amazing! Bees that don’t sting! I had no idea such a thing existed. Wonderful! With the other dangers of your animals down there, you deserve that.